About this report

The study identified 456 discrete RRS initiatives that are available to residents and businesses in Wellington City. Initiatives are well-utilised, but services are unevenly spread between different types of RRS activities and product types. The resulting gaps in provision undermine the overall accessibility and attractiveness of RRS services. The key barriers to establishing and growing RRS initiatives are a lack of financial viability and limited access to appropriate premises and infrastructural services. Data capture and analysis also needs improvement to understand and communicate the impact of current and future RRS activities. There is an opportunity to increase collaboration and partnership in relation to RRS activities within Council teams at WCC and amongst and between Councils, RRS operators, and mana whenua and Māori groups across the region.

Drawing on the identified barriers and opportunities and a supporting literature review, the report proposes 30 potential intervention options for WCC to consider, to help increase the presence, resilience and impact of RRS in Wellington City.

The findings are shared via a full report and two supporting documents:

1. Full report
2. A spreadsheet containing the complete stocktake findings
3. A spreadsheet of 30 potential intervention options for WCC to consider and almost 400 example interventions identified through a literature review of local and international sources).

​Disclaimer

For this research project, we undertook both a desktop study and a number of interviews with various individuals representing different businesses and organisations. Our desktop study traversed a range of materials already in the public domain. As a result, not every business, organisation, or initiative mentioned in this report was interviewed. Furthermore, not every interviewee is necessarily mentioned. The images in this report were acquired from a range of businesses and organisations identified through the stocktake research. The inclusion of their images does not mean that these particular organisations were interviewees in the gap analysis phase of this study. Inclusion of images from various organisations also does not indicate those organisations endorse the contents of this document.

Acknowledgements

Authors and researchers (alphabetical by surname): Hannah Blumhardt, Warren Fitzgerald, Ella van Gool, Marianna Tyler

Peer review: Polly Griffiths

Artificial Intelligence: Reuse Aotearoa does not use Large Language Models or Generative AI. This report has been prepared without the use of such tools and technologies.

Report commissioned by:

Thank you to Wellington City Council for commissioning this research, and to all the interviewees who participated in this research project and so generously shared their time, insights and expertise with us. We also acknowledge all the hundreds of organisations already operating reuse, repair, and share initiatives across Wellington, Porirua, and Lower Hutt cities.